Collaborative Research: RAPID: Developing Real Time Metrics on the Effects of ARRA Investments on Technological Invention

2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(ARRA)包括了大量旨在促进科学和工程创新的公共投资。政策制定者以及科学界和工程界在评估这些投资的有效性方面面临挑战。对一种发明--专利发明--的分析，已成为调查发明活动和研发投资有效性的成熟框架。几乎所有利用专利作为知识经济窗口的研究都使用了授权专利的数据。然而，授权的专利数据可能大大低估了当前发明活动的总水平，因为多个发明人团队和公司可能会竞争开发相同的新技术，但最终可能只有一项努力能成功地获得发明专利奖。专利申请可能会提供更多关于整体发明活动的信息，因为它们提供了关于同时进行的研究努力的信息。这项研究开发了一个专利申请数据库，并将美国专利商标局使用的技术代码进行匹配，以确定申请与ARRA优先接受联邦研发资金的技术的特征。它将授权专利数据库与申请数据相结合，通过比较成功和不成功的专利申请尝试，提供了一个独特的机会来识别更成功的发明家、组织和地区的特征。这项研究的重点是通过比较ARRA资金支付前后的三个结果，考察ARRA的研发投资取得了哪些技术进步的问题。这些结果包括专利申请率、新发明家的进入，以及以前专门从事特定技术的发明家是否转向了ARRA的目标技术。这项研究还考察了从构思一个想法到提交专利申请的平均时间，2008年不到6个月，在5年内减少了10个月以上。除了对政策辩论的智力贡献，这个项目还有几个额外的影响。研究结果以简短、可读的报告形式呈现，围绕数据和结果的表格和图形显示，面向州和联邦两级的政策制定者。为这项研究构建的数据集和指标以及研究结果都在网上公开提供。

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) included a significant amount of public investments directed at fostering innovations in science and engineering. Policy-makers, as well as the scientific and engineering communities, face a challenge in assessing the effectiveness of these investments. Analysis of one type of invention, patented inventions, has become a well-established framework for investigating inventive activity and the effectiveness of R&D investments. Nearly all the research utilizing patents as a window to the knowledge economy has used data on granted patents. However granted patent data may greatly understate the total level of current inventive activity since multiple inventor teams and firms may competing to develop the same new technology, but only one effort may ultimately be successful in obtaining a patent award for the invention. Patent applications may provide more information about overall inventive activity since they provide information about concurrent research efforts. The study develops a database on patent applications, and matches the technology codes used by the US Patent and Trademark Office to characterize applications with the technologies prioritized by ARRA to receive Federal R&D funding. It integrates a granted patent database with application data which provides a unique opportunity to identify the characteristics of more successful inventors, organizations, and regions by comparing successful and unsuccessful prior attempts at patenting. The particular focus of the research is to examine the question of what technological advances were achieved as a result of ARRA's R&D investments by comparing three outcomes before and after the disbursement of ARRA funding. These outcomes include patent application rates, the entry of new inventors, and whether inventors who had previously specialized in specific technologies shift into technologies targeted by ARRA. The research also examines the mean time from the 'conception' of an idea and the filing of a patent application, which was less than six months in 2008, and has dropped by more than ten months in five years.Beyond intellectual contributions to policy debates, this project has several additional impacts. The research results are presented as short and readable reports, built around tabular and graphical displays of data and results, and are directed at policy-makers at the State and Federal levels. The datasets and metrics constructed for the research, as well as the research results, are made publicly-available on the web.